Eminem Album Advert Analysis – Not Afraid (Single)

This is an advert from Eminem’s 2008 single of ‘Not Afraid’. The song relates to newfound courage and confidence, albeit facing struggles and eventually jumping off a ledge. This is representative in the title of the single’s poster because the name of the song relates to the ideas in the song of gaining confidence and literally not being afraid of anything. However, the lyrics show us a slightly different insight because it says about being pushed so far that you eventually go over the edge. I think that this is representative in the image on the poster because it is showing the rapper mimicking a gun to the camera, which shows the limit to which he been pushed to. However, I also think that the mimicking of this gun also represents the courage and confidence represented because this hand gesture shows him almost making fun of the viewer because it is just a playful motion rather than a harmful or offensive gesture. I think that this gives the image a lot of levels because on the one hand you could interpret that it is bad as he has been pushed so far to make this gesture, but I also feel that it is not harmful as this gesture could also be used as just a playful sign.


There is not wide gamut of colours in this poster, but I feel that the colours, which are in it, are very bold and contrast with other. For example, the two main colours are black and white, which makes up for his clothes, some of the text and the background. These are very plain colours and I feel that these were used to represent the contrast in feelings within the song. On the one hand he feels low and down, which is represented by the black, but he also has newfound confidence, which is represented by the white colours. There are also very slight hinted highlights of other colours, for example, the red highlights in the jacket and I feel that this reflects Eminem’s characteristics because he is a reformed man after several problems in his history, yet he still has these bad traits running through him, which is represented through these red streaks. There is also a little bit of blue text, featuring the rapper’s name under the huge single title, but it is very small compared. I think that this is because they want the viewer to be able to distinguish the name because of the different colour; however, the name of the single is the main focus because the image of Eminem and the single title is enough to sell the product because Eminem is a name everyone knows.

There is not a lot of text in this poster, but this is because the image of Eminem speaks for itself and so does not need much text to promote the single. However, the text that is on the page says a lot about the single. For example the large text that has the name of single, which is there to grab the attention of the reader, but it, is also in bold because it is representing the bold feelings that the song is giving off, so the viewer will see the feelings of the song before they have heard it. Also the blue colour of text that says the rapper’s name in brackets shows the insecure feelings that the song is giving off because it is in brackets showing he is unsure of himself.